Ever moved half way around the world to a place you've never been? Me neither.
This blog will be a record of mine and my family's discovery of the South Pacific as we up sticks after 21 years in the North East of England and move to Suva, Fiji.

Monday, 11 February 2013

Peering out from beneath the parasol

I have taken to roaming the streets of Suva armed with a
large USP multi-coloured golf umbrella. This isn’t because of the rain (though
it does come in handy for that) but rather to keep my brain from being braised
inside of my skull. While you’ve been digging snow from your driveways, I've been cooked into a state of tropical torpor which I can occasionally rouse
myself from with liberal doses of air conditioning, gin & tonics and the odd
trip to the beach.

One wonders how I could possibly have so many places to go
and so many things to do without being in paid employment (that is coming, but
on island time). As we have no car, I travel by taxi or bus. I know that I’ve blogged
about the taxi drivers here before, but I had three last week that are worth
mentioning. One drove at speeds faster on the roads of Suva than I’d ever been
on the island before. His driving technique was to drive at great speed,
anticipating that other drivers would either drive sensibly or just get out of
his way. I suspect that he may not live much longer. The next one drove very
slowly but entirely erratically. I imagine that his vision was somewhat
impaired. Finally, there was the personable chap whose driving was completely
normal, but had Fiji Water bottle half full of what I suspect was urine
sloshing around next to the gear shift.

Last
Wednesday, Anna and I (having survived the taxi trip into town) were having a skiving afternoon watching Django at the
cinema when the lights came on and the usher appeared. She announced that there
was a tsunami warning and we could either stay to finish the movie or get a
voucher to return to the cinema another day. The cinema is right on the
harbourside and while we were really enjoying the movie, seeking higher ground
seemed like the sensible option. Ironically, we’d just seen the trailer for
The Impossible with Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor which is about the 2004
Boxing Day tsunami and decided that we wouldn't want to see it because we live
on a tsunami-prone tropical island. When we emerged from the theatre,
blinking against the sunlight, traffic was at a standstill and the pavements
were full of people.

Previously I've experienced two types of natural disasters:
earthquakes, which you can do bugger-all about when they strike except dive for
cover, and hurricanes, which you have days to prepare for. I was at a bit of a
loss with what to do next. Run to the top of the nearest tall building? Walk the
4ish miles home which is outside of the tsunami danger area? I literally had no
idea if we had two minutes or two hours in which to act so I asked a couple who
were studying a smart phone. According to them we had 2 hours to get to higher
ground. Jumping into a taxi was out of the question as they were all full and weren't going anywhere anyway.

Traffic and people leaving town towards higher ground

So we started to walk uphill out of town. I was really
impressed by the calm, orderly and friendly atmosphere. The only upset person
we saw was a hysterical ten-ish year old. We overheard her expat mother say “don’t
worry, it won’t be like the movie” when we walked by. I will refrain from
commenting on parenting skills, though I suspect taking a child that age to see
The Impossible was perhaps a mistake and may have created neuroses that will
last a lifetime.

The sun was searing, but we walked most of the way home before
Anna’s friend stopped to give us a lift the rest of the way. My shirt was
literally soaked in sweat (I didn't have had my brolly with me), but before I
showered we had to prepare for the impending disaster. This included filling up
water bottles and posting updates on Twitter and Facebook.

Fortunately, just as an email from the US Embassy popped
into my inbox telling me to prepare for the tsunami, a friend rang to say that
the warning had been called off.

You all may be wondering where John was during
all of this. Earlier that day, he had rung me from a waterside hotel where he
was attending a conference just out of town to tell me that his phone battery
was nearly dead. Despite me saying regularly that we should have a family plan
in case of an emergency (like a tsunami) we hadn't made one. Well, at least we
know what the first rule of the emergency plan will be. Keep your bloody phone
charged.